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this first meeting of the Star Council in over a thousand years was
irrelevant. All wanted to take action immediately, but none could agree on the
action to take. The babble rose again, and threatened to break into heated
argument, and Dafril could tell that her colleagues would accomplish nothing
further on the issue right then. Their hypothetical determination of
punishment for Luercas remained pointless until they found him, in any case.
So she changed the subject.
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Have all of us chosen suitable avatars among the mortals?
Everyone had.
Excellent.
Dafril shared a feeling of delight with her colleagues.
My avatar is on her way to rescue the
Mirror of Souls from its resting place. Events worked into my hands very
nicely she didn t require much pushing at all to undertake the journey.
Sartrig said, Mine follows her, in case she cannot complete the mission. He
would follow her whether I
prodded him or not he is under other compulsions besides mine. But these
compulsions, which come from within, are to my benefit. They allow me to
remain in the background, where most of the time he is not aware of my
presence. Just as well he could banish me from his mind if he chose to do
so; his magical training has progressed already to that point.
Other reports followed in quick order: a paraglese encouraged to pursue a path
away from the interests of his Family and toward the broader interests of the
Star Council; a princess of the Gyru-nalle royal line of Feelasto led to speak
of making an alliance with the Families of Ibera; a Dalkan pirate-king just
beginning to think of suing for peace with the Iberan Families.
With such encouraging reports to buoy them, the Star Councillors separated to
return to their avatars, agreeing before they parted to watch for Luercas and
to think until they met again on what should be done about him.
Chapter
22
H
asmal refused the chair Kait offered him; instead, he sat on the floor of her
cabin and insisted that she sit across from him. When they were settled, he
added to the shield he d cast around the two of them. He spun through it the
don t notice us spell he had prepared so carefully in advance. Kait watched
his finger tracing through the powder he scattered on her floor and said
nothing. More interestingly, her face gave away nothing that she was thinking.
He almost smiled then her years of training in diplomacy might serve him
almost as well in what he needed to do as if she had been brought up from
childhood to be a Falcon.
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When the shields were strengthened and he was sure the activities in the room
would not draw any attention from anyone on the ship, he brushed his powders
into a neat pile, scooped them into one hand, and scattered some on himself
and some on her.
Her expression still didn t change, but when he d finished, she did ask in an
even, polite tone, Religious ritual?
He shook his head, and now he did smile. No. Something that would get both of
us condemned to death anywhere in Ibera, and probably here as well, for all of
Captain Draclas s liberalism in other areas. The completion of a magical
spell.
He did see a flicker of expression cross her face then, but it never touched
on fear. Instead, in the brief instant before calm neutrality removed that
tiny spark of visible emotion from her eyes, he thought he saw resignation.
And he thought, Resignation? What a bizarre response.
It seems that I am born to be a heretic, she said, and gave him a sad smile
that he did not understand.
No matter how pure my motives or how dire my need or how great my love of
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Family, every road I
travel takes me further from the True Path.
I don t understand.
Now one of her eyebrows arched and the start of a smile quirked at one corner
of her mouth. You don t understand that if this wall of peace you build is
built with magic, and if I desire to learn how to build it as well, that doing
so will make me a heretic? Please. How long did you live in Ibera? And how did
you keep from being drawn and quartered in the public square?
He shook his head. She d missed his question. I understand that what I do is
. . . heretical. In Ibera, in most places in the world, to most people. I know
that. What I don t understand is why you act as if this is only the latest
heresy for you.
Ahhh.
My heresy. She glanced around her cabin and shrugged. The walls listen,
Hasmal, and the keyholes watch, and I would be doubly damned if my secrets got
out. Even here.
The spell I cast around us protects us. No one will notice you; no one will
listen. You and I are alone.
That eyebrow flickered upward again. Then she smiled and shrugged, and said,
Are you a brave man, Hasmal?
No. He didn t even have to consider the question. I am the basest of base
cowards.
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Her smile grew broad, and hinted at merriment. She leaned forward and rested a
slender, long-fingered hand over his, and said, You are honest, and I can t
remember the last time I met an honest man. We re all cowards, I think. Those
who would deny that are simply liars into the bargain. Her hand squeezed his.
I ll show you my heresy, and that way we ll be even. You ve given me the
power to have you hanged aboard this ship, if I ever wanted to betray you; now
I ll return the favor, so that you ll be able to sleep at night.
And then she added, with a final, gentle squeeze, I won t hurt you. I
promise.
While he still wondered what in the world that enigmatic statement could mean,
a surge of dark, wild magic erupted from her and her body began to twist. Her
smile became a feral beast-grin as her mouth and nose and jaw stretched
forward and tapered into the lean, muscular muzzle of a killing machine. Her
eyes, their rich brown unchanged, moved back in her skull and apart; her
forehead angled backward, growing deeper as it flattened. Ears stretched
upward, pointing and belling into wolfish erectness, though that was the only
part of her face that made him think of a wolf. Her body altered, too, so that
she went from being two-legged to four-legged, and the breeches and tunic that
had fit her so fetchingly in human form hung weirdly on her in this other
shape, stretched almost to bursting across the rib cage and haunches, hanging
slack at waist and wrists and ankles.
We all have our secrets, you see, she said, and she still spoke in the
cultured accents of a woman of
Calimekkan Family. Her voice, though, was the voice of a creature of
nightmare, one that stalked through the endless forests of sleep.
Sweat broke out on Hasmal s forehead and his upper lip, and when he said, So
I see, his voice broke on the word see, squeaking as it had when he was
fourteen and not since.
Her reversion to human form took longer, though the process he thought of as
melting began the instant she spoke.
When at last she sat before him as a human again, he said, What are you?
She closed her eyes and sighed. I was born under a curse. We are called
Karnee, my kind . . . though I
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have met only one other Karnee in my entire life, and he pursues me even now.
She shrugged. I m a monster. A heretic. An evil beast that most times
masquerades as a woman. If my parents hadn t hidden me and taken another baby
in my stead before the parnissas on Gaerwanday, the Day of Infants, I would
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